1 comment to Daily Headlines, Thursday, 12/30/2010

“Senators and Congressmen await the time when they have enough seniority and clout to cash in chits for pork. Once in the pork barrel driver’s seat, they loathe to relinquish power.

But the cycle must be broken at some point, and the country’s mood has never been more receptive than now. Curtailing earmarks won’t solve all of the country’s financial problems. But it is a logical step and one that has symbolic significance as well.

If the public isn’t willing to allow Congress to cut pet projects from the budget, Congress must look elsewhere to strike a better balance between spending and revenue. The public could well be asked to consider a choice between pet projects and higher taxes. And the latter is never popular.”

“The sovereign debt crisis now threatening Europe, as well as major American states and cities, discloses the sheer incompetence of a political class that has over-promised, under-delivered and squandered vast amounts of their citizens’ wealth.

Greece, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, California, Illinois, Los Angeles and Chicago are simply the poster children for what happens when elected officials engage in reckless and irresponsible management of their economies, their banking system or their respective government’s public finances”…

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–The Ruling Class Has Bankrupted the World–

Two paragraphs which tell you pretty much all you need to know about the condition we’re in. Though the author should emphasize more that while politicians were leading the charge, there were plenty in big business cheering them on. The people in charge of the show running–Big Government and Big Corporations–have spent us in to oblivion. They did this by taking away our money and giving us slips of paper and then borrowing like mad against the wealth of the people until we, the people, have little wealth left and massive debts hanging over our heads.

This will all crash and burn. Today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year one day, for certain. It can’t be sustained forever; I’m astounded they’ve managed to keep it together as long as they have. But it will fall apart not least because while there is still a small and shrinking window of opportunity to dodge the worst of it, our Ruling Class is just continuing to print fake money and borrowing like mad.

The “Fed” played “Santa” while the U.S. is drowning in debt, it appears the Federal Reserve has been spending hundreds of billions propping up companies and banks in the United States and abroad. When the government picks the winners and losers, you have the potential for politics to interfere and determine who gets the money and who benefits. These include politically-connected U.S. based companies, like General Electric, to foreign-owned giants like Toyota, the Korean Development Bank and Swiss-controlled UBS. There’s nothing like bailing out Europeans so they can retire in their early fifties. BMW was also a benefactor of the Feds largess.

So the big question is, with the Fed pumping money in HUGE quantities to all these private companies, just how much of the Wall Street rally is real and how much is TARP/Stimulus/QE2 which are not real?

It all gets back to economist Luigi Zangales’ philosophy that the government’s economic policies should be pro-market [benefiting everyone] rather than pro-business, designed to give advantages to favored banks and corporations or help the “fat cats” and “insiders.”

Yet… those same banks did not assist those who just needed a little propping up in order to stay afloat. They were given a huge stack of cash, which if that was the right thing to do it was likewise the right thing to do to restructure some home owner’s loans. No one should have gotten a dime, or everyone should have.

This is what we are aware of. Think of all the things we are not aware of. Friendships are made and federal bureaucrats and legislators enjoy “the good life” following their government “service.”

CitiGroup supposedly is courting former Obama Director of Management and Budget Peter Orszag. I wonder what favors Orszag did for CitiGroup or other major financial institutions during his government “service.”

Our job is to take back control of our destiny. What happened on November 2nd was just a tiny first step in the process. The Ruling Class doesn’t want to do this as there is no place in such a world for parasites who get rich and powerful by bamboozlement and fraud. And so the entire Ruling Class needs to be tossed out on its ear and a new system developed which rewards hard work, savings and careful investment. Until we do that, we won’t get back to prosperity.

Beware of those who allegedly fret about “extreme” positions. They are the people who said we were fools for nominating Marco Rubio and Rand Paul. Such warnings are mere attempts to get us to knuckle under to be afraid of getting rid of those who wrecked the nation and the world. Thus the Master to the Slave trying to convince the slave that without the master, the slave will perish.

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The tea party has done us a favor by reminding us that the Constitution should be our governing document, guide our political decision making, and limit government’s intrusion into the rights reserved to the people and the states.

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-Pookie

Legislative Dispatch

This Thursday will mark the last day of the legislative Session. For some, it was a Session that seemed would never end. For others, it was one that ended much too quickly. It may be early, yet, to write an obit on this Session, but as we approach the finish line, some perspective may be in order.

As you know, a very important piece of legislation will be presented for our consideration in the House tomorrow in Montgomery – Senate Bill 310 – the “Students First” tenure and fair dismissal reform bill. Like me, many House members have been inundated with phone calls and emails from opponents of this bill, and some have been [...]

There are a lot of issues to debate before we begin the final days of this session. In fact, I am quite certain there will be some comments on this post debating many of them. Before we get into the last seven day of the session I wanted to bring up a topic that [...]